What Starts in Chaos
“Jinki, I don’t understand why you’re being so selfish.”
“Mom, I just. Okay.” Jinki exhales slowly, pacing himself, hands flat on their dining room table. His mother is still looking at him with a pointed expression as if she knows exactly what he’s about to say and it makes Jinki’s tongue inch back a bit. “It’s not about. I’m not being selfish, okay. I just don’t see why he has to stay here.”
“Kim Jonghyun is the son of my bestfriend and he needs a place to stay for the summer. We have a room ready for him-“
“Yeah, mom, you’re talking about my room. It’s not a ready room or a hotel room or a guest room, mom, it’s my room. M. Y. MY.”
“Oh, Jinki, you’re being such a D. I. C. K. Dick.” Jinki’s mouth hangs open while she gathers the two empty plates on the table that once held cookies that Jinki never thought his mother would use to bribe him into lending a space in his bed to some kid he didn’t know. He had to admit, he should have known that she was up to something since she actually took the time to get the cookies just the way Jinki liked it, crunchy and moist in the center, chocolate bits and oatmeal sprinkled inside in perfect proportion. Jinki’s mom baked occasionally, but she was a director-yes, as in films with actors and actresses and a chair, the whole shebang-and that pretty much took up her time to do more than go through numerous amounts of scripts and calling film stars divas to no end.
Which fascinated Jinki about his mom’s best friend, who happened to be an actress and if his memory serves him right (which it rarely does) they met on one of his mom’s sets a long time ago.
Now, Kim Jonghyun. He’s heard of Kim Jonghyun, of course. He knows enough from the spread of tabloids and news reports that the kid likes the bars, the ladies and the lime light and was soon going to follow in the footsteps of his mother after he graduates high school, which is probably in about six months, Jinki based on his own remaining months since they were the same age, according to his mother.
A lot of people get caught up in the industry enough to lose sight of the ends of the tunnel where life actually begins but Jinki’s never been attracted to the luxuries. At least, not the way he knew Jonghyun was. His and Jonghyun’s mother probably made the same amount of money, his mother probably made more if Jinki considered the fact that she was, indeed a filmmaker who has projects left and right. And they had a huge house.
“And spare rooms.” Jinki mumbles out loud and his mother spins around from dumping the plates on the sink, ripping the apron that she hasn’t worn for years (or ever, really) from her waist. She stares at him questioningly. “We have spare rooms. We have two spare rooms, mom. Why does he have to stay in my room?”
His mother sighs, as if she was forming a thought in her head, a genuine one. “Listen.” His mother takes the seat next to him and takes Jinki’s hands in hers. “You know how tough it is growing up without a father. And being an only child at that. Well, Jonghyun grew up the same way and I just figured it would only be right for the both of you to have some sort of male interaction amidst the maternal care that you were blessed with for your seventeen years of existence.”
“Wow, mom, you didn’t even breathe in that one sentence, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Jinki, I just want him to feel as if the rest of his school year won’t be spent like the ones that past. This whole industry can be very tainting and with Lisa always gone-“
“Lisa?”
“Yeah. My bestfriend. His mom. Lisa.”
“I thought her name was Eunol?”
“She changed it. Who goes into stardom with a name like that? Anyway, with Lisa always gone and him left to his own devices it’s a very unhealthy environment for him. In this house, I’ll give him curfews and ground him every once in a while, give him a brother,” His mother gestures towards him, Jinki’s brows arching. “and he’ll feel like he’s in a real family in no time.”
“Why is he switching schools anyway?”
“He’s finally trying to set things straight with all of the rumors in his last school. And the one before that And the one before that. And-the point is, the school you go to is pretty much okay and it’s private and I don’t think he’ll have a hard time there.”
“Did he have a hard time at his old one?”
“It’s high school, baby. Everywhere’s hell. Just have to go with the lesser evil, you know?”
Jinki shakes his head at his mother who did not at all act her age. “You say that like you know how it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were popular in school, mom. You’re not like me. I’m… different. My idea of fun is reading and solving puzzles and-“
“And I love my baby boy so much coz he makes every puzzle his bitch!” His mother holds him in both arms, refusing to let go no matter how much he fights away from her. She buries her nose into his hair, her hand playfully jabbing his ribs and Jinki screams for her to get off for about a minute.
With Jinki’s hair a mess, brown strands sticking out, face flushed, his mother leaves him and rises from her seat, heading to the main hall and grabbing her car keys from the crystal ashtray near the door.
“Are you leaving?”
“I got a text earlier about some creeper stalking our female lead. Something about climbing over the fence, stealing her underwear and prancing around the gate with it, I dunno. I have to go down there and keep the situation under wraps.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know. They know I have a shitload of work to do still they have to drag me all the way-“
“I meant about the pervert, mom.”
“Yeah. Him too. Anyway, I’ll see you tonight? Dinner, 8:30?”
“Yeah, sure. Oh wait.” Jinki catches her, hanging by the door frames as she walks onto the gravel of their front parking lot, her car parked in front of JInki’s. “Isn’t that kid coming today?”
“Uhuh.” His mom ignores the panic rising in red blotches on Jinki’s neck and cheeks, unlocking her door.
“Mom!” Jinki whines enough to get his mother to pause right before sinking into her seat.
“Play nice, baby.”
“What? Mom, don’t! You can’t leave me!”
She did leave him. And Jinki closes the door hopelessly, his forehead colliding with the door. It seemed less painful in the movies.
~o~
Eunhye, one of the three maids working in Jinki’s house lightly knocks on his door around four in the afternoon. She tells him there is a boy with blonde hair looking for him down stairs and as Jinki recalls his friends-none of which were blonde and a boy at the same time-he assumes that Jonghyun has finally made it.
Jinki wasn’t really expecting much of Kim Jonghyun. He knew from the mere fact that his mother was an actress slash model that his face would be refined and chiseled, angled, with almond shaped eyes that stretched a lot wider than usual ones. He knew that Jonghyun would have a good figure even under a jacket and shirt and plain jeans and that he could make something as simple as the combination of clothing items listed earlier look as good as an Armani suit.
One thing that threw Jinki off in the slightest was Jonghyun’s smile, so well placed and disarming and it kind of knocks the wind out of Jinki. That and the fact that Jonghyun was a little shorter than he seemed on TV.
“Hi.” Jonghyun nods in Jinki’s direction as he spots the boy semi jogging towards him. Jinki doesn’t mind the informal greeting and the fact that he doesn’t bow. His mom hosted parties at times where the guests would mostly be celebrities and assholes and, yeah, people liked acting western for some godforsaken reason. Jinki reaches for Jonghyun’s offered hand, shaking it in a tight squeeze before retreating and patting his hand on his jeans. “You must be Jinki.”
“And you’re Jonghyun.” Jinki’s eyes turn into crescents as he smiles. He isn’t very fond of how they disappear when he smiles but his mother has always dubbed it as something that he got from her which could only mean that she was proud of her son’s smile. “Long trip?”
“Eh.” Jonghyun shrugs. “This place wasn’t that hard to find.” He sinks on his knees, gripping the strap of his bag.
“Where’s your stuff?”
Jonghyun shakes the brown leather bag in front of him.
“Just the one bag?”
“I travel light.”
“Ah.” Jinki purses his lips, considering the bag, although it was sizeable it was still rather small for all of someone’s clothes packed for six months. “Uhm. So. I’m guessing my mom told you that we have to share my room.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jinki half hoped that he would say how silly the idea was, dismiss it and they could live their lives happily with a wall in between them but, “I actually proposed the idea, thinking that you know, I could actually make a friend by being around. A lot.” Jonghyun’s uproar of laughter sends a chill down Jinki’s spine, his brows furrowing.
“I’m sorry.” Jinki stops in the middle of the hallway to face Kim Jonghyun, who somehow managed to grab his phone from his pocket and began texting while they were taking the stairs. “You were the one who asked my mom if we could room in together?”
“I asked my mom.” Jonghyun answers while sparing Jinki’s wide eyes a few quick glances, attention still on the screen on his phone as his fingers typed away. “Then she talked to your mom then bam.” Jonghyun shrugs, a satisfied smile on his face as he pushes his slide phone back in his pocket.
“Bam.” Jinki repeats lifelessly.
~o~
“Sorry if it’s a bit small.” Jinki apologizes once he pushes to door to his room open. Actually his room wasn’t small. It wasn’t even an adjective that was remotely related to small. His room was as large as his kitchen. And they had two kitchens. So that should say a lot. Maybe he was trying to put Jonghyun off about the whole idea of rooming together but he knew once Jonghyun’s smirk came back to play upon noticing the king size bed in the center that his plan needed some tweaking.
“Eh. It’ll do.” In the few minutes that Jinki’s hung around Jonghyun he’s already figured out the expanse of the boy’s vocabulary. He made use of random English words in between his sentences and used nonsensical expressions like bam and you know and eh a lot.
Jinki paces to his closet, opening the door to show Jonghyun where he can put his stuff. He spins around and finds the other boy dumping his bag on one side of Jinki’s bed.
“Oh.” Jinki crosses the room again, reaching Jonghyun in seconds. While Jonghyun busies himself once again on his phone Jinki takes his bag and places it gently on the ground. “Your bag’s been outside.” He explains when he senses Jonghyun’s questioning stare. “I just changed my sheets so.”
Jonghyun answers Jinki with a polite smile that reaches his eyes, taking his bag from the floor and plopping it back down on the cream sheets. Jinki stares at the bag. “I guess this’ll be my side then.”
Jinki suppresses a sigh and the urge to knee Jonghyun in the stomach where he probably has abs that Jinki can grate cheese on. Not that Jinki’s been thinking about his body. Or grating perfectly edible cheese on it.
~o~
Luckily Jonghyun went out saying something about meeting friends around the corner (Jinki could not care less where he went really) so the rest of the day before dinner was allotted time for Jinki to get some homework done. He would usually spend afternoons in front of his computer, typing away essays like a thousand words was merely a sentence.
He was used to being someone that people depended on. People meaning his teachers, his mother and from time to time, Taemin, his one friend who can handle all his ups and downs. Speaking of Taemin-
“Hyung,” He was a well known guest in Jinki’s house, almost like family. Which wasn’t much of a stretch since Jinki practically saw Taemin as a younger brother. “You won’t believe who I just ran into on my way here.”
Jinki spins on his computer chair, facing Taemin who was getting out of the strap of his body bag, settling down on one of Jinki’s couches since he knew how Jinki was with his sheets. “Who?”
“Kim Jonghyun.” Taemin was all round eyes and wonder from behind his curtained fringe, a quality that made his mother pinch his cheeks whenever they crossed paths. “The Kim Jonghyun!”
“Uhuh.” Jinki disinterestedly spins back to his monitor, typing wildly.
“Hyung.”
“Yes, Taemin?”
“Why was he in your neighborhoor? Do you think he’s meeting that actress from the news? You know, the one who they say he’s dating?”
“Seriously, Taemin. I don’t get why you still pay attention to stuff like that.”
“I’m a teenager living in a city where fame is a second language. And my best friend is a famous film director’s son. Does that clear things up for you?”
Jinki shakes his head, one eye squinting at the screen. “He’s living here.”
“What?”
“My mom and his mom know each other and she wants him to live here for the rest of the school year.”
“Oh god.”
“Taemin.” Jinki rises from his seat, shutting his laptop. “You can’t tell anyone, though. Okay? His mom says the main reason why he’s here is to shy away from the spot light.”
“Right, right.” Taemin nods. “Wow. This is so exciting. Lisa Kim’s son is staying with you!”
Jinki scrunches his nose, joining the younger on the couch. “I wouldn’t exactly say exciting.”
“Why wouldn’t you say exciting, hyung?” Taemin’s enthusiasm makes Jinki’s head ache. “You’re going to be living with a socialite. Like, people know his name even if he hasn’t been doing anything yet. He’s gonna be real famous.”
“Yeah well, he’s acting like he already is.” Jinki rolls his eyes. “And besides, all that glitter and glamour isn’t an excuse to be a jackass. He thinks it is though so.”
“He’s a jackass?” Taemin nearly pouts the way children do as if Jinki just broke the news to him about Santa Clause not being real.
“Kind of?” It wasn’t really a question but Jinki didn’t feel like breaking the guy’s image in front of Taemin with just one meeting. “I don’t know. I’m just not excited about the thought of spending the rest of the school year with him.”
“It’s not like you guys are gonna see each other all the time, you know. This house is like a soccer field with walls.”
Then Jinki goes on to explain how him and Jonghyun were going to be rooming in together and how their mothers have finalized everything.
“Oh, jeez. In this room? The two of you? On that bed?”
They both stare at the bed with contemplation. Jinki never even thought about it that way until Taemin mentioned it. “I haven’t shared a bed with anyone since… well. Ever.”
“I know.” Taemin nods. “You have some serious space issues. That’s why I never sleep over.”
“Hey.” Jinki tilts his head. “I distinctly remember you sleeping over that one time we had that project.”
“Oh, you mean that time when you woke up and I was on the floor? Yeah, that doesn’t count.”
~o~
It was okay at first. Jonghyun came home before 10 pm and followed Jinki’s rule about never crossing the hotdog pillow in between them in bed. In school, Jonghyun already managed to win groups of students over, partly with his fame the other part out of pure charm. Jinki had to admit, he was impressive in his own right.
Jonghyun just knew how to talk to people and get their numbers and he was barely separated from his phone the first three nights during dinner until Jinki’s mom decided that it was distracting. On the fourth night she came up with a cellphone basket where everyone’s cellphone was to be placed inside and they would only be getting it back afterwards. Jinki surrendered his phone without hesitation and upon noticing this Jonghyun decided to let his own go as well, giving it away in the basket with a quick shrug and a, “Eh, what the hell? It’s just a phone, right?”
It was merely a week after when Jonghyun broke his curfew and got a good lecture from Jinki’s mother. Jinki listened from the stairs as his mother went on about responsibility and how Jonghyun was to come home at a decent hour the next time. When Jinki hears Jonghyun padding away and the light switch click he dashes for his door, sinking in his sheets with his back turned to his door.
Jonghyun walks in not a minute after, shutting the door quietly. There’s dip in the mattress where Jonghyun sits and Jinki has to restrain himself from kicking Jonghyun out for sitting on his sheets without cleaning himself first.
Jonghyun sighs heavily, fishing his phone from his front pocket. He leans back as he reaches for it, accidentally losing his balance and hitting Jinki’s side with the back of his head.
“Shit.” He curses through his teeth, immediately looking back to see if he woke the other boy up. He was slightly intoxicated, his balance as unsure as his logic. He wasn’t even certain about how the talk with Jinki’s mom went, the whole time only hearing the beat of his own heart. He finally plucks his phone out, the slide snapping up as he goes through his three unread messages, one from his mom, one from Jinki’s mom and the last one from Minho.
Jonghyun steals a glance at Jinki’s back over his shoulder as if he was guilty of something. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, at least he thought so or tried to convince himself while replying to Minho’s message. After seeing the message was sent he lies on his back, the knots in his shoulders and muscles melting into a deep slumber.
~o~
Jinki has this thing about arranging the boxes of his cereal according to the colors of the rainbow, it sets his mornings right and no matter how many times Taemin says he needs help in that condescending tone, Jinki keeps his cereal boxes that way because he can. It’s not like he’s forcing Taemin to sit in front of his cupboard and stare at the damn boxes.
So when it’s 7 am and the tiles in the kitchen are cold as fuck, the least that he wants is the sight of the Trix cereal next to Golden Grahams. He doesn’t even like Golden Grahams. He keeps it there because they’re better than Cheerios and they’re both yellow so it fills the gap.
Jinki stares at the mismatch of colors as if he’s faced with a squished spider.
Crunch crunch.
Jinki whirls around, bangs flying lazily to cover one side of his forehead and sees Jonghyun munching on a bowl of cereal-Trix, Jinki notices through the rim, colors not lost on him-on the small table in the kitchen. His legs are propped up where his bowl is supposed to be, crossed over one another leisurely as he leans into his chair, bowl and spoon in hand. He swipes at the dribble of milk on his chin before smiling up at Jinki.
“Did you do this?” Jinki asks as he plucks out the Trix box. He doesn’t have to ask, really, because there was no one else in this house that would dare to do so, knowing JInki and his abnormal habits. “Did you move the boxes around?”
Jinki knew that Jonghyun just did this because of their little arguement last week about Jinki’s computer and how he didn’t want it on past 10 pm. Jonghyun and him have been rooming in for a month now and Jonghyun should be used to his nonsensical needs, at least trying to hide his displeasure since he wasn’t a permanent resident of the Lee mansion.
“I dunno. Did I?”
“You know how I keep them in a specific order Jonghyun!”
“I know that you’re going to become a very successful psychopath one day and that soon you’ll be lining up bodies instead of cereal boxes.”
Jonghyun’s cellphone vibrates on the table, as if adding a dot to his statement. His feet hit the floor but as he reaches forward with one vacant hand Jinki saunters over defiantly and clasps a hand over the device, shoving it in the air over his head. Jonghyun pushes his seat back with his thighs as he stands, bowl hitting the table as he glares at Jinki. “Jinki don’t be stupid. Gimme my phone.”
“You might be able to reach it if you stand on a stool.”
Jonghyun marches over, hands finding their way on Jinki’s shoulders as he jumps in the air for a second, failing to retrieve his phone. He groans, curses and his breath is cool and slightly fruity when it hits Jinki’s nose. Jinki hates how he noticed this details, hates the fact that Jonghyun was taking something of his, hates him enough to shove him out of the way and throw his phone somewhere past the door leading to the living room.
They both focus their stares at the frame, Jinki, looking abruptly worried because, really, he didn’t mean that. But as soon as Jonghyun’s head spins back around and he’s got a death glare painted on his angled features, Jinki’s game face is back on and he’s dead set on proving that this wasn’t just some inconsequential brawl over his cereal box colors. No.
“Come on!”
“No!” Jinki replies eloquently. “You come on!”
“You realize that you might have possibly destroyed my phone because of your ridiculous cereal box color combination.”
“It’s not…” Jinki pouts. “a combination. It’s a pattern.”
“You’re preposterous. You know that?” Jonghyun disapprovingly shakes his head, heading towards his phone. Jonghyun finds it, slide open, near the leg of a coffee table. The monitor blares out his unread message as he wipes the screen with thumb, inspecting the rest of the parts before proceeding to press the message open.
Jinki quietly toes to door, peeking over the frame to just to see Jonghyun’s back as his head bends over his phone, pressing on a few buttons here and there.
“I guess your phone’s fine then.” Jinki whispers peevishly as his hand slides from the frame. He scurries back to the cupboard, placing his cereal boxes exactly where he wants them, but this time it didn’t make his morning any better.
~o~
Jinki’s train of thought is interrupted with the sound of the door to his room colliding with the adjacent wall, sending him to tear his eyes away from his monitor in order to spin in the direction of the noise. Before the frame stood Kim Jonghyun, a faded pink dress shirt hanging by the sleeve on his hand.
“Jinki, what the fuck?” Jonghyun throws the shirt on the ground and aims a finger at it, looking alternately at him and the shirt.
Jinki remains in his seat, unfazed. “What?”
“You did this!” Jonghyun accusingly states as he steps over the shirt, shoving it back with his ankle as if the very sight of it made him want to vomit. “You ruined it!”
“How? I. What?”
“How, you, blah blah blah!” Jonghyun takes a hold of the shirt once more only to chuck it at Jinki’s face, the pink momentarily blinding Jinki until he clutches the fabric out of his face and inspects it.
“What are you talking about, midget?” Jinki isn’t one for name calling but it was as if Jonghyun had this gigantic fishing pole that could fish out the worst in Jinki from the depths of his soul with ease.
“That shirt didn’t used to be pink!”
“I have better things to do than… this!” Jinki holds the shirt up, crumpling it into a ball with both hands and throwing it back at Jonghyun who catches it with both of his.
“You’re just a bored little rich kid, aren’t you?!”
Jinki scoffs, spinning back to his monitor. “You’re one to talk.”
“You better pay for this.”
“I would. If I was responsible for it. Which I’m not so.”
“Damnit, Jinki!” Jonghyun pulls at Jinki’s chair but the other boy’s hands automatically fly to the edge of his desk, clasping his hands at whatever he can to keep his chair from rolling to where Jonghyun wants it too.
“You’re gonna break my chair!”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
“Hyung?” Taemin’s meek voice floats into both their ears, stilling them in the gawky positions with Jinki folding over himself to reach for the edge of his desk with both hands, the chair he was sitting on tilting back towards the gravitational as well as Jonghyun forceful pull at the frame. Jonghyun suddenly loosens his grip on the frame of Jinki’s chair, the wheels landing on the ground with a thud as their eyes remain locked on the younger boy.
“Taemin.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“No.” Jonghyun and Jinki reply in unison, exchanging puzzled stares before looking back at Taemin with forced smiles.
A bucket of awkward silence is flung at them. Good thing Jonghyun isn’t one for letting the awkward linger. “Hi. I’m-“
“Kim Jonghyun yesIknowIloveyourmom’swork-you’reImeanheyIuhm. I’m Taemin.” Taemin sticks a hand out to fill Jonghyun’s vacant one, shaking it enthusiastically with bright eyes. “I’m a fan. If you haven’t noticed.”
Jinki rolls his eyes as the both of them retrieve their hands. “It’s nice to know that someone here is.”
“Ahahaha, right?” Taemin laughs mechanically and in that moment of clumsy smiles Jinki is more than certain that Jonghyun’s finding Taemin adorable enough to keep.
Taemin passes a look at Jinki beside Jonghyun’s shoulder, Jinki offering him one arched brown in return. “I’ve seen you around school, haven’t I?”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Taemin nods. “I’m one of Jinki’s friends.”
“Probably his only friend, right?”
“Yeah, I didn’t see that retort coming at all. Nice one, Jonghyun.” Jinki says to his monitor while Taemin shifts his weight on his legs, panic rising in his throat.
“Uhm”
“Don’t mind him. He’s just, well.”
“I’ve known him for two years.” Taemin offers with slow nods of his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
The rest of that day was spent with Taemin and Jinki in Jinki’s room while Jonghyun randomly bursts in just to remind Jinki of his ruined clothing and how not paying for it will cost him a leg and his left nut. Taemin giggles rather girlishly from his seat while Jinki huffs at his monitor, trying his hardest not to wish death upon the blonde monster.
~o~
The next day when Jonghyun finds out that there was a miscalculation in the laundry room involving Jonghyun’s shirt and Eunhye, the maid, Jonghyun struggles for the words he wants to hear out of Eunhye’s mouth.
“So, Jinki had nothing to do with this?”
“Jinki sshi? He’s never been here in the laundry room. Ever.”
Jonghyun was on the verge of paying her just to say that Jinki did this on purpose just so he would not have to face his mistakes but, really, he would just be placing himself in a rather compromising position and Eunhye might just stare at his hand of offered money, all the while texting Jinki’s mom of the bribery being made behind her back.
Truth was, Jonghyun didn’t exactly hate Jinki to the point of getting the guy in trouble but everything that has been transpiring between the two of them so far has been leaning more towards his not-really-hate emotions and it’s beginning to weigh on Jonghyun since they’ve been sharing a room. He starts to question why he thought that it was a good idea to begin with.
That afternoon as Jinki disappears to God knows where Jonghyun gathers his things from the closet and the bathroom, throwing them carelessly into his brown bag and moving to the nearest guest room on the same floor level. He finds the one that he saw a few weeks back when he was discovering the different rooms for himself, the one with the big windows and a four poster bed. He dumps the bag in the center of the bed, plopping down next to it on his stomach, pushing at the mattress to adjust himself on his back.
He stretches his arms up and behind his head, drawing patterns on the ceilings with his eyes. Everything around him is spacious and quiet and everything that it wasn’t when he was rooming with Jinki. And he decides, confusingly enough-even to himself-that he doesn’t like having the whole bed to his lonely self. It reminded him too much of home and why he wanted out of that house in the first place. It reminded him of nights when he would wake up to no one, disappointment clogging his brain for the rest of the day. It reminded him of things he wanted pushed away, memories he didn’t want in the pile.
So with that he takes his things and places them back in Jinki’s closet, his toothbrush back in the toothbrush holder in Jinki’s bathroom, realizing for the first time that Jinki never ruined his shirt. And now he kind of believes it to the point where he’d rather apologize than sleep in a bed that didn’t require him to keep still in his place.
~o~
Choi Minho wasn’t the most popular boy in campus to begin with, but his name got around for being a varsity player of the soccer team since he was in his freshman year, making him the youngest and the most consistent to ever be on the team. So it would only make sense that he and Jonghyun would get along like two peas in a pod.
The star varsity player and the renowned actress’ son-a match made in heaven, Jinki thinks as a result of one too many romantic comedies he’s shamefully watched and… in some cases enjoyed.
Jinki peers over his half crescent edged sandwich, fixated on the pair laughing along with another group of students in a table not that far from Jinki’s. Taemin’s torso comes into view and Jinki does this thing where his gaze trails up to meet Taemin’s and immediately goes back to his sandwich as if it tasted like gold and rainbows mixed together.
“I saw that.”
“You saw what?”
“You are so into him.”
“I am not into Jonghyun.” Jinki bites off a huge chunk of his sandwich, munching lividly-or the way he thinks is the livid way to munch on a sandwich when really he just seemed hungry.
“I didn’t even have to say his name.” Taemin drops his tray on the table, hauling one leg up to slip underneath, the other shortly after before settling his weight down and piercing his banana milk with a straw.
“You’re delusional.”
“And you’re gay for Jonghyun. Shit happens, huh hyung?”
“Taemin, how can I like someone whose feet stink worse than my cooking?”
“You can deny those feelings all you want, hyung. But the fact of the matter is you’re just as charmed by him as his minions over there. I’m incredibly insightful, or haven’t you noticed?” Taemin states all of this before searching for the straw of his banana milk with his tongue. Jinki isn’t quite sure whether he was talking to a four year old or someone who is just as wise as he claims to be.
“Just finish your milk and shut up.”
“If you don’t like him then answer this. Have you-at any point of sleeping in one bed with him-kicked him out like you did me?”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Don’t avoid the question.” Taemin taps a finger on the side of his milk.
Jinki shrugs, tugging the plastic of his sandwich further down.
“You haven’t, have you?”
“Your point?”
“Love has changed you. Cue slow motion shots of Jonghyun in a montage of your memories with him accompanied by soft, yet still acceptingly testosterone blended romantic music.”
In Jinki’s head all he sees are images of Jonghyun’s head as he concentrates on a message he’s texting as he frequently does whenever he’s alone or with company, Jonghyun tossing clothes from his closet when he’s in search of a shirt or a pair of pants that he just flung in the laundry basket two days ago, Jonghyun scrunching up his nose distastefully at the sight of Jinki’s books piled up by his side as he asks, “Can you make like that guy Powder from that one scene in that movie where the girl chooses a random page of a book and he recites everything word for word? I love that scene.” and all Jinki does is shut him out mentally but not without a quick shove. They weren’t lovey dovey memories or anything that would make anyone swoon and, honestly, music would just make it all look like a bunch of misplaced footage running around in Jinki’s head. But it keeps him occupied for the first few seconds, enough time to cause Taemin to laugh at his face victoriously as if confirmation was within his reach.
~o~
Jinki walks out of the faculty room with a wad of papers in his hand, photocopies of surveys that Jinki has to distribute to his entire batch. The survey was about the school trip which was to take place in a few weeks; questions regarding where the students wanted to go since their school promoted democracy of the students yet Jinki was caged within the duties of activities as such because he was the model student and oh so obedient.
Jinki meets Taemin by his locker, the other male gaping at the thick layer of papers in Jinki’s hands.
“Youre joking? All of these?”
“There are seventy nine students in our batch. The teachers made me photocopy ninety just to make sure that everyone gets a copy.”
“Until what time do we have?” Unlike Jinki, Taemin wasn’t condemned to the wishes of their spiteful teachers but they were friends so by association, he was.
“Until tomorrow.”
“WHAT?”
“We’ll be excused from a few classes don’t worry. So for the rest of the days all we have to do is… this.”
With Taemin running out of complaints they split the pile and wait until the bell rings. With all of the students in their classrooms everything would be organized.
Taemin and Jinki decide on which side of the walls of classrooms they are going to be working with and when Jinki doesn’t realize the third of the classrooms that he was to enter contained Jonghyun, he didn’t have much else to say or do. He didn’t even know why seeing Jonghyun was a problem for him when they saw each other every day. Literally.
Jinki carefully gives out the papers one by one, the teacher helping him out on the other side. Once all of the papers where with a respectful student Jinki positions himself near one of the windows, accidentally overhearing Jonghyun whispering at Minho, asking if he was going to come.
Jinki would be lying if he said he didn’t understand why his spirits deflated at the sight of Jonghyun smiling when Minho nods a yes. He strongly disliked it when the protagonist of a movie would be confused because of very normal feelings such as jealously and anger out of liking someone and he wasn’t going to spend sleep just to roam around in his head for the answers.
And it really rubbed him the wrong way when he suddenly realized that he liked Jonghyun enough to be jealous because even as he liked the other boy he was still immensely irritated at the sight of him.
~o~
Jinki and Jonghyun are awakened later that night to Jinki’s mom, knocking repeatedly on their door at midnight. Jonghyun, whose positioned allowed him an easier angle at the door, languidly rises from his bed to pull it open.
Jinki’s mother stood before him, the light catching her furious expression.
“On the bed, now. Jinki, get up!” She half shouts, flipping the lights open.
JInki is momentarily blinded, shielding his sensitive eyes away with the back of his hand as he stirs in the sheets, pushing them away to sit up, his hair a tangles, dark brown mess. Jonghyun, hair still unbelievably the way that it looked this morning when they were in school, takes a seat on the foot of the bed like Jinki’s mother asked, heart racing as she paced in front of them, waiting for Jinki to sit next to Jonghyun.
When both boys have settled on the foot of the bed Jinki’s mother reveals from behind her a two cigarette butts, blackened at one end. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Jonghyun. Did you smoke out in the patio when I was away?”
If Jonghyun was drugged with sleep before that question certainly jolted him to sobriety. “What?”
“Don’t lie to me. I know how you like to have your fun, but I will not tolerate smoking in this house, do you understand me?”
Jonghyun flicks his gaze towards Jinki who was blinking up at him quietly then back his mom, powerless. “Yes.” He answers only after a few breaths.
“This goes for you too, Jinki. If you ever let him talk you into doing something like this you’ll find yourself in a world of pain.”
Jinki’s mom leaves after that, stomping towards the door and shutting it close without bothering to turn the lights off. She was pissed beyond compare and Jinki knew this to be a fact so they both stay silent, Jinki stuttering even in his own head.
“Jonghyun.” Jinki fiddles with his shirt nervously. “Jonghyun, I-“
“Don’t worry about it.” Jonghyun goes on all fours, crawling towards the pillow, too tired to focus on anything seriously.
“What?”
“I said, don’t worry about it. Can you just get the lights?”
Jinki worries on his bottom lip, wringing his hands together as he walks toward the light switch and flips it up. In the dark, with only the street lights penetrating through Jinki’s window he stares at Jonghyun’s back wondering if he was mad of if he really didn’t care.
If only Jinki had disposed of the butts in a can of coke like he always did. The one time he forgets to be cautious…
~o~
“Hey, Jjong.” Jinki catches up to Jonghyun in the hallway, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as Jonghyun shuts his locker close. “About last night.”
“Dude.” Jonghyun practically laughs while Jinki stands there, puzzled. “I said you don’t have to worry about it. Your mom was right, anyway, I mean, if there was anyone in that house that was worthy of being called out for smoking it’s me, right?”
“Jonghyun,” Jinki takes Jonghyun’s shoulder in his hand, willing the other boy to just stop and hear him out, even for just a second. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I swear.”
Jonghyun’s gaze roams over Jinki’s face. He seemed as if he was in search for sincerity even if he didn’t have too, not with the way Jinki was touching him and practically pouting at him. Jonghyun gives in, offering a placating smile. “It’s okay. I don’t mind covering for you just this once. But you have to stop that habit. It’ll make your teeth rot and then, you know, you’re smile will come off all weird coz of all the black.”
Jinki’s hand suddenly flies to his lips, brows furrowing causing Jonghyun to laugh at his self consciousness. “I’ll see you later.”
~o~
Jonghyun isn’t surprised to find Jinki hunched over his stupid computer as he slams the stupid door and plops into the stupid sheets because everything about today was just a cornucopia of stupid. And then some. Jonghyun gathers pillows and parts of the blanket into his arms, muffling his shriek and reducing it to what seemed to Jinki like a painful moan of sorts, still distracting no matter how absorbed he was in his work.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Jinki tries without looking away from the monitor, without even preventing himself from typing out full sentences and even he’s impressed with how amazing he is at multitasking.
“Depends. Do you have a hole I can crawl into and die in?”
“Not right now, I don’t.” Jinki dots the hundredth sentence, stretching in his seat as he takes his well deserved first break of the day.
“What do you always type?”
“Homework?” Jinki spins around, not bothering to keep Jonghyun from messing his bed up any further because there was clearly no point to telling Kim Jonghyun to not get his things into the mix of his current frustrations.
“Are you just saying that but really you’re just surfing for porn? Come on, we’re both guys, you can tell me.” Jonghyun sits up, readjusting his fringe.
Jinki scoffs. “Only you can tell me I’m neglecting my homework for pornography when you’re clearly upset about something else that’s in a whole other spectrum.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Jonghyun falls back on the bed, hand over his stomach.
“Okay.” Jinki spins back to his monitor, mouth pushed to one side as he reads over what he just wrote.
“It’s just ridiculous, you know?”
“What is?”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Who are you talking too?”
“Can’t you see that the air and I are having a conversation? Fuck off.”
Jinki releases a breath through his nose, not in the mood for such immaturity but he humors Jonghyun anyway because all he has to do is shut up and listen.
“I’m so sick of people thinking that I’m craving for attention. Like I asked to be born as my mom’s son. Like I chose this. And it’s not my fault I look this way. Damnit, it’s my fucking face, there’s nothing I can do about it. But no, people always think everything that they see on me has something to do with them. That I purposefully style my hair to the right and wear black pants just so they’d want to get in them and see just how tight they are. Whatever happened to romance?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eavesdrop much?”
“Oh my god!” Jinki takes whatever books he can fit into his arms, a yellow pad paper under his arm and a pen shoved in one of his pockets. He walks towards the door, marches almost, intending to finish his work in his mother’s office. “I’ll be back when you’re no longer a thirteen year old girl.”
When the door slams shut Jonghyun’s head sinks into the sheets, thinking that air wasn’t very good at conversation.
~o~
Ever since that day Jinki’s noticed differences in Jonghyun. He thinks there are a lot but really it’s just the way Jonghyun ignores certain texts that makes his phone beep unlike how he used to reply to each one without a second thought before.
What feeds Jinki’s curiosity even more is when Jonghyun doesn’t even hesitate to send his phone into the basket before dinner, sometimes even asking where it was. Jinki arches a brow dubious every time but Jonghyun ignores him, stuffing his face with rice and meat.
In school is where the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly because Jinki sees Jonghyun and Minho no longer walking together or even sitting together during lunch and this makes him wonder about what went on between the two of them even if it evidently isn’t any of his business. But much like any high school all Jinki had to do was be friends with the right people and the dirt was going to come to him. Luckily, his one and only trusted friend, Taemin, was an ace at talking to people, what with his innocent oh my god there is no way that this guy would spill any of my secrets face.
From Taemin what Jinki finds out is that Jonghyun and Minho got into a fight a few days back in a party at Kim Kibum’s house. The brawl wasn’t anything violent but Jonghyun was seen leaving a room and Minho was trudging after him, trying to apologize about something but Jonghyun wasn’t having it.
“So, you see what this means, hyung?”
“No, what?”
“Well, one, fuck, you’re a lot dumber than I expected and two, Jonghyun is obviously gay.”
“We can’t just jump to conclusions.”
“There’s no jumping when they’re doing the jumping for us. I mean, think about it. Jonghyun leaves the room, clearly upset about something that Minho did and Minho’s after him all, ‘hold on, bruh! Lemme explain.’”
“And Jonghyun’s gay because…?”
“Because they just had a lover’s squabble. Oh, wow. It’s like I’m teaching you how to walk sometimes, hyung.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Taemin folds his arms over his chest, tapping his foot, obviously annoyed with Jinki not agreeing with him.
“It’s just. Taemin. I don’t see anything factual enough to prove that. They could have been fighting about anything-or, no. Wait.”
Jinki thinks back to the time in his room, when Jonghyun walked in and began conversing with the air about love and how he hated being seen as his mother’s son all the time.
“What, hyung? What is it?”
Jinki catches his tongue, not allowing his bafflement or what could possibly be an epiphany overcome him. “No. It’s nothing. I should, uh, pee. Bye Taemin.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I love you too.” Jinki ruffles his hair, running to the next hall and passing by the classrooms calmly in search of Jonghyun’s blonde head through the small windows.
~o~
“Hey.” Jinki’s breathless by the time he catches up with Jonghyun on the track, managing to find him by asking around in the faculty room for his schedule.
Jonghyun, shocked, halts in the act of running, forgetting about the race and staring JInki up and down as the boy holds onto his knees and catches his breath. “Jinki? What are you doing here?”
“You should-ha, oh shit.” Jinki clutches at his heart as he struggles to position himself back up, squinting at the sun. “You should be careful. The rumor mill is spinning rather rapidly.”
“What are you talking about?” Jonghyun hauls him by the arm, leads him to the bleachers as they avoid the other runners speeding past. “Breathe, will ya?”
“I. am. I. Wow. How far is it. From the building. To here? Like. Six blocks?”
“The building’s over there. This is why you should stop smoking. You’re shriveling your lungs up making its capacity the same size as a pea. True facts.”
“You should be careful about what people are saying about you and Minho.”
“Me and Minho?’
“I heard from a reliable source-“
“You mean Taemin?”
“-no. well, that’s irrelevant, but, um, yes. Just. He said that there might be some sort of misconception being formed regarding your, er, friendship.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious, Jjong. Like, people find out. And when they do they’ll eat that shit up.”
“There’s nothing going on, though.”
“That won’t hold up in Naver dot com.”
Before Jonghyun can formulate a response his coach is calling him and waving at him to get his ass back on the field, as he so graciously formed his sentence. Jonghyun stands up, patting his hands on his golden shorts. “I’ll see you at home. Go to class, Jinki.”
“Yeah, I’ll-class, oh shit!”
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-- bengiieee, i hope you like it. :) mishu mucho~
“Mom, I just. Okay.” Jinki exhales slowly, pacing himself, hands flat on their dining room table. His mother is still looking at him with a pointed expression as if she knows exactly what he’s about to say and it makes Jinki’s tongue inch back a bit. “It’s not about. I’m not being selfish, okay. I just don’t see why he has to stay here.”
“Kim Jonghyun is the son of my bestfriend and he needs a place to stay for the summer. We have a room ready for him-“
“Yeah, mom, you’re talking about my room. It’s not a ready room or a hotel room or a guest room, mom, it’s my room. M. Y. MY.”
“Oh, Jinki, you’re being such a D. I. C. K. Dick.” Jinki’s mouth hangs open while she gathers the two empty plates on the table that once held cookies that Jinki never thought his mother would use to bribe him into lending a space in his bed to some kid he didn’t know. He had to admit, he should have known that she was up to something since she actually took the time to get the cookies just the way Jinki liked it, crunchy and moist in the center, chocolate bits and oatmeal sprinkled inside in perfect proportion. Jinki’s mom baked occasionally, but she was a director-yes, as in films with actors and actresses and a chair, the whole shebang-and that pretty much took up her time to do more than go through numerous amounts of scripts and calling film stars divas to no end.
Which fascinated Jinki about his mom’s best friend, who happened to be an actress and if his memory serves him right (which it rarely does) they met on one of his mom’s sets a long time ago.
Now, Kim Jonghyun. He’s heard of Kim Jonghyun, of course. He knows enough from the spread of tabloids and news reports that the kid likes the bars, the ladies and the lime light and was soon going to follow in the footsteps of his mother after he graduates high school, which is probably in about six months, Jinki based on his own remaining months since they were the same age, according to his mother.
A lot of people get caught up in the industry enough to lose sight of the ends of the tunnel where life actually begins but Jinki’s never been attracted to the luxuries. At least, not the way he knew Jonghyun was. His and Jonghyun’s mother probably made the same amount of money, his mother probably made more if Jinki considered the fact that she was, indeed a filmmaker who has projects left and right. And they had a huge house.
“And spare rooms.” Jinki mumbles out loud and his mother spins around from dumping the plates on the sink, ripping the apron that she hasn’t worn for years (or ever, really) from her waist. She stares at him questioningly. “We have spare rooms. We have two spare rooms, mom. Why does he have to stay in my room?”
His mother sighs, as if she was forming a thought in her head, a genuine one. “Listen.” His mother takes the seat next to him and takes Jinki’s hands in hers. “You know how tough it is growing up without a father. And being an only child at that. Well, Jonghyun grew up the same way and I just figured it would only be right for the both of you to have some sort of male interaction amidst the maternal care that you were blessed with for your seventeen years of existence.”
“Wow, mom, you didn’t even breathe in that one sentence, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Jinki, I just want him to feel as if the rest of his school year won’t be spent like the ones that past. This whole industry can be very tainting and with Lisa always gone-“
“Lisa?”
“Yeah. My bestfriend. His mom. Lisa.”
“I thought her name was Eunol?”
“She changed it. Who goes into stardom with a name like that? Anyway, with Lisa always gone and him left to his own devices it’s a very unhealthy environment for him. In this house, I’ll give him curfews and ground him every once in a while, give him a brother,” His mother gestures towards him, Jinki’s brows arching. “and he’ll feel like he’s in a real family in no time.”
“Why is he switching schools anyway?”
“He’s finally trying to set things straight with all of the rumors in his last school. And the one before that And the one before that. And-the point is, the school you go to is pretty much okay and it’s private and I don’t think he’ll have a hard time there.”
“Did he have a hard time at his old one?”
“It’s high school, baby. Everywhere’s hell. Just have to go with the lesser evil, you know?”
Jinki shakes his head at his mother who did not at all act her age. “You say that like you know how it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were popular in school, mom. You’re not like me. I’m… different. My idea of fun is reading and solving puzzles and-“
“And I love my baby boy so much coz he makes every puzzle his bitch!” His mother holds him in both arms, refusing to let go no matter how much he fights away from her. She buries her nose into his hair, her hand playfully jabbing his ribs and Jinki screams for her to get off for about a minute.
With Jinki’s hair a mess, brown strands sticking out, face flushed, his mother leaves him and rises from her seat, heading to the main hall and grabbing her car keys from the crystal ashtray near the door.
“Are you leaving?”
“I got a text earlier about some creeper stalking our female lead. Something about climbing over the fence, stealing her underwear and prancing around the gate with it, I dunno. I have to go down there and keep the situation under wraps.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know. They know I have a shitload of work to do still they have to drag me all the way-“
“I meant about the pervert, mom.”
“Yeah. Him too. Anyway, I’ll see you tonight? Dinner, 8:30?”
“Yeah, sure. Oh wait.” Jinki catches her, hanging by the door frames as she walks onto the gravel of their front parking lot, her car parked in front of JInki’s. “Isn’t that kid coming today?”
“Uhuh.” His mom ignores the panic rising in red blotches on Jinki’s neck and cheeks, unlocking her door.
“Mom!” Jinki whines enough to get his mother to pause right before sinking into her seat.
“Play nice, baby.”
“What? Mom, don’t! You can’t leave me!”
She did leave him. And Jinki closes the door hopelessly, his forehead colliding with the door. It seemed less painful in the movies.
~o~
Eunhye, one of the three maids working in Jinki’s house lightly knocks on his door around four in the afternoon. She tells him there is a boy with blonde hair looking for him down stairs and as Jinki recalls his friends-none of which were blonde and a boy at the same time-he assumes that Jonghyun has finally made it.
Jinki wasn’t really expecting much of Kim Jonghyun. He knew from the mere fact that his mother was an actress slash model that his face would be refined and chiseled, angled, with almond shaped eyes that stretched a lot wider than usual ones. He knew that Jonghyun would have a good figure even under a jacket and shirt and plain jeans and that he could make something as simple as the combination of clothing items listed earlier look as good as an Armani suit.
One thing that threw Jinki off in the slightest was Jonghyun’s smile, so well placed and disarming and it kind of knocks the wind out of Jinki. That and the fact that Jonghyun was a little shorter than he seemed on TV.
“Hi.” Jonghyun nods in Jinki’s direction as he spots the boy semi jogging towards him. Jinki doesn’t mind the informal greeting and the fact that he doesn’t bow. His mom hosted parties at times where the guests would mostly be celebrities and assholes and, yeah, people liked acting western for some godforsaken reason. Jinki reaches for Jonghyun’s offered hand, shaking it in a tight squeeze before retreating and patting his hand on his jeans. “You must be Jinki.”
“And you’re Jonghyun.” Jinki’s eyes turn into crescents as he smiles. He isn’t very fond of how they disappear when he smiles but his mother has always dubbed it as something that he got from her which could only mean that she was proud of her son’s smile. “Long trip?”
“Eh.” Jonghyun shrugs. “This place wasn’t that hard to find.” He sinks on his knees, gripping the strap of his bag.
“Where’s your stuff?”
Jonghyun shakes the brown leather bag in front of him.
“Just the one bag?”
“I travel light.”
“Ah.” Jinki purses his lips, considering the bag, although it was sizeable it was still rather small for all of someone’s clothes packed for six months. “Uhm. So. I’m guessing my mom told you that we have to share my room.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jinki half hoped that he would say how silly the idea was, dismiss it and they could live their lives happily with a wall in between them but, “I actually proposed the idea, thinking that you know, I could actually make a friend by being around. A lot.” Jonghyun’s uproar of laughter sends a chill down Jinki’s spine, his brows furrowing.
“I’m sorry.” Jinki stops in the middle of the hallway to face Kim Jonghyun, who somehow managed to grab his phone from his pocket and began texting while they were taking the stairs. “You were the one who asked my mom if we could room in together?”
“I asked my mom.” Jonghyun answers while sparing Jinki’s wide eyes a few quick glances, attention still on the screen on his phone as his fingers typed away. “Then she talked to your mom then bam.” Jonghyun shrugs, a satisfied smile on his face as he pushes his slide phone back in his pocket.
“Bam.” Jinki repeats lifelessly.
~o~
“Sorry if it’s a bit small.” Jinki apologizes once he pushes to door to his room open. Actually his room wasn’t small. It wasn’t even an adjective that was remotely related to small. His room was as large as his kitchen. And they had two kitchens. So that should say a lot. Maybe he was trying to put Jonghyun off about the whole idea of rooming together but he knew once Jonghyun’s smirk came back to play upon noticing the king size bed in the center that his plan needed some tweaking.
“Eh. It’ll do.” In the few minutes that Jinki’s hung around Jonghyun he’s already figured out the expanse of the boy’s vocabulary. He made use of random English words in between his sentences and used nonsensical expressions like bam and you know and eh a lot.
Jinki paces to his closet, opening the door to show Jonghyun where he can put his stuff. He spins around and finds the other boy dumping his bag on one side of Jinki’s bed.
“Oh.” Jinki crosses the room again, reaching Jonghyun in seconds. While Jonghyun busies himself once again on his phone Jinki takes his bag and places it gently on the ground. “Your bag’s been outside.” He explains when he senses Jonghyun’s questioning stare. “I just changed my sheets so.”
Jonghyun answers Jinki with a polite smile that reaches his eyes, taking his bag from the floor and plopping it back down on the cream sheets. Jinki stares at the bag. “I guess this’ll be my side then.”
Jinki suppresses a sigh and the urge to knee Jonghyun in the stomach where he probably has abs that Jinki can grate cheese on. Not that Jinki’s been thinking about his body. Or grating perfectly edible cheese on it.
~o~
Luckily Jonghyun went out saying something about meeting friends around the corner (Jinki could not care less where he went really) so the rest of the day before dinner was allotted time for Jinki to get some homework done. He would usually spend afternoons in front of his computer, typing away essays like a thousand words was merely a sentence.
He was used to being someone that people depended on. People meaning his teachers, his mother and from time to time, Taemin, his one friend who can handle all his ups and downs. Speaking of Taemin-
“Hyung,” He was a well known guest in Jinki’s house, almost like family. Which wasn’t much of a stretch since Jinki practically saw Taemin as a younger brother. “You won’t believe who I just ran into on my way here.”
Jinki spins on his computer chair, facing Taemin who was getting out of the strap of his body bag, settling down on one of Jinki’s couches since he knew how Jinki was with his sheets. “Who?”
“Kim Jonghyun.” Taemin was all round eyes and wonder from behind his curtained fringe, a quality that made his mother pinch his cheeks whenever they crossed paths. “The Kim Jonghyun!”
“Uhuh.” Jinki disinterestedly spins back to his monitor, typing wildly.
“Hyung.”
“Yes, Taemin?”
“Why was he in your neighborhoor? Do you think he’s meeting that actress from the news? You know, the one who they say he’s dating?”
“Seriously, Taemin. I don’t get why you still pay attention to stuff like that.”
“I’m a teenager living in a city where fame is a second language. And my best friend is a famous film director’s son. Does that clear things up for you?”
Jinki shakes his head, one eye squinting at the screen. “He’s living here.”
“What?”
“My mom and his mom know each other and she wants him to live here for the rest of the school year.”
“Oh god.”
“Taemin.” Jinki rises from his seat, shutting his laptop. “You can’t tell anyone, though. Okay? His mom says the main reason why he’s here is to shy away from the spot light.”
“Right, right.” Taemin nods. “Wow. This is so exciting. Lisa Kim’s son is staying with you!”
Jinki scrunches his nose, joining the younger on the couch. “I wouldn’t exactly say exciting.”
“Why wouldn’t you say exciting, hyung?” Taemin’s enthusiasm makes Jinki’s head ache. “You’re going to be living with a socialite. Like, people know his name even if he hasn’t been doing anything yet. He’s gonna be real famous.”
“Yeah well, he’s acting like he already is.” Jinki rolls his eyes. “And besides, all that glitter and glamour isn’t an excuse to be a jackass. He thinks it is though so.”
“He’s a jackass?” Taemin nearly pouts the way children do as if Jinki just broke the news to him about Santa Clause not being real.
“Kind of?” It wasn’t really a question but Jinki didn’t feel like breaking the guy’s image in front of Taemin with just one meeting. “I don’t know. I’m just not excited about the thought of spending the rest of the school year with him.”
“It’s not like you guys are gonna see each other all the time, you know. This house is like a soccer field with walls.”
Then Jinki goes on to explain how him and Jonghyun were going to be rooming in together and how their mothers have finalized everything.
“Oh, jeez. In this room? The two of you? On that bed?”
They both stare at the bed with contemplation. Jinki never even thought about it that way until Taemin mentioned it. “I haven’t shared a bed with anyone since… well. Ever.”
“I know.” Taemin nods. “You have some serious space issues. That’s why I never sleep over.”
“Hey.” Jinki tilts his head. “I distinctly remember you sleeping over that one time we had that project.”
“Oh, you mean that time when you woke up and I was on the floor? Yeah, that doesn’t count.”
~o~
It was okay at first. Jonghyun came home before 10 pm and followed Jinki’s rule about never crossing the hotdog pillow in between them in bed. In school, Jonghyun already managed to win groups of students over, partly with his fame the other part out of pure charm. Jinki had to admit, he was impressive in his own right.
Jonghyun just knew how to talk to people and get their numbers and he was barely separated from his phone the first three nights during dinner until Jinki’s mom decided that it was distracting. On the fourth night she came up with a cellphone basket where everyone’s cellphone was to be placed inside and they would only be getting it back afterwards. Jinki surrendered his phone without hesitation and upon noticing this Jonghyun decided to let his own go as well, giving it away in the basket with a quick shrug and a, “Eh, what the hell? It’s just a phone, right?”
It was merely a week after when Jonghyun broke his curfew and got a good lecture from Jinki’s mother. Jinki listened from the stairs as his mother went on about responsibility and how Jonghyun was to come home at a decent hour the next time. When Jinki hears Jonghyun padding away and the light switch click he dashes for his door, sinking in his sheets with his back turned to his door.
Jonghyun walks in not a minute after, shutting the door quietly. There’s dip in the mattress where Jonghyun sits and Jinki has to restrain himself from kicking Jonghyun out for sitting on his sheets without cleaning himself first.
Jonghyun sighs heavily, fishing his phone from his front pocket. He leans back as he reaches for it, accidentally losing his balance and hitting Jinki’s side with the back of his head.
“Shit.” He curses through his teeth, immediately looking back to see if he woke the other boy up. He was slightly intoxicated, his balance as unsure as his logic. He wasn’t even certain about how the talk with Jinki’s mom went, the whole time only hearing the beat of his own heart. He finally plucks his phone out, the slide snapping up as he goes through his three unread messages, one from his mom, one from Jinki’s mom and the last one from Minho.
Jonghyun steals a glance at Jinki’s back over his shoulder as if he was guilty of something. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, at least he thought so or tried to convince himself while replying to Minho’s message. After seeing the message was sent he lies on his back, the knots in his shoulders and muscles melting into a deep slumber.
~o~
Jinki has this thing about arranging the boxes of his cereal according to the colors of the rainbow, it sets his mornings right and no matter how many times Taemin says he needs help in that condescending tone, Jinki keeps his cereal boxes that way because he can. It’s not like he’s forcing Taemin to sit in front of his cupboard and stare at the damn boxes.
So when it’s 7 am and the tiles in the kitchen are cold as fuck, the least that he wants is the sight of the Trix cereal next to Golden Grahams. He doesn’t even like Golden Grahams. He keeps it there because they’re better than Cheerios and they’re both yellow so it fills the gap.
Jinki stares at the mismatch of colors as if he’s faced with a squished spider.
Crunch crunch.
Jinki whirls around, bangs flying lazily to cover one side of his forehead and sees Jonghyun munching on a bowl of cereal-Trix, Jinki notices through the rim, colors not lost on him-on the small table in the kitchen. His legs are propped up where his bowl is supposed to be, crossed over one another leisurely as he leans into his chair, bowl and spoon in hand. He swipes at the dribble of milk on his chin before smiling up at Jinki.
“Did you do this?” Jinki asks as he plucks out the Trix box. He doesn’t have to ask, really, because there was no one else in this house that would dare to do so, knowing JInki and his abnormal habits. “Did you move the boxes around?”
Jinki knew that Jonghyun just did this because of their little arguement last week about Jinki’s computer and how he didn’t want it on past 10 pm. Jonghyun and him have been rooming in for a month now and Jonghyun should be used to his nonsensical needs, at least trying to hide his displeasure since he wasn’t a permanent resident of the Lee mansion.
“I dunno. Did I?”
“You know how I keep them in a specific order Jonghyun!”
“I know that you’re going to become a very successful psychopath one day and that soon you’ll be lining up bodies instead of cereal boxes.”
Jonghyun’s cellphone vibrates on the table, as if adding a dot to his statement. His feet hit the floor but as he reaches forward with one vacant hand Jinki saunters over defiantly and clasps a hand over the device, shoving it in the air over his head. Jonghyun pushes his seat back with his thighs as he stands, bowl hitting the table as he glares at Jinki. “Jinki don’t be stupid. Gimme my phone.”
“You might be able to reach it if you stand on a stool.”
Jonghyun marches over, hands finding their way on Jinki’s shoulders as he jumps in the air for a second, failing to retrieve his phone. He groans, curses and his breath is cool and slightly fruity when it hits Jinki’s nose. Jinki hates how he noticed this details, hates the fact that Jonghyun was taking something of his, hates him enough to shove him out of the way and throw his phone somewhere past the door leading to the living room.
They both focus their stares at the frame, Jinki, looking abruptly worried because, really, he didn’t mean that. But as soon as Jonghyun’s head spins back around and he’s got a death glare painted on his angled features, Jinki’s game face is back on and he’s dead set on proving that this wasn’t just some inconsequential brawl over his cereal box colors. No.
“Come on!”
“No!” Jinki replies eloquently. “You come on!”
“You realize that you might have possibly destroyed my phone because of your ridiculous cereal box color combination.”
“It’s not…” Jinki pouts. “a combination. It’s a pattern.”
“You’re preposterous. You know that?” Jonghyun disapprovingly shakes his head, heading towards his phone. Jonghyun finds it, slide open, near the leg of a coffee table. The monitor blares out his unread message as he wipes the screen with thumb, inspecting the rest of the parts before proceeding to press the message open.
Jinki quietly toes to door, peeking over the frame to just to see Jonghyun’s back as his head bends over his phone, pressing on a few buttons here and there.
“I guess your phone’s fine then.” Jinki whispers peevishly as his hand slides from the frame. He scurries back to the cupboard, placing his cereal boxes exactly where he wants them, but this time it didn’t make his morning any better.
~o~
Jinki’s train of thought is interrupted with the sound of the door to his room colliding with the adjacent wall, sending him to tear his eyes away from his monitor in order to spin in the direction of the noise. Before the frame stood Kim Jonghyun, a faded pink dress shirt hanging by the sleeve on his hand.
“Jinki, what the fuck?” Jonghyun throws the shirt on the ground and aims a finger at it, looking alternately at him and the shirt.
Jinki remains in his seat, unfazed. “What?”
“You did this!” Jonghyun accusingly states as he steps over the shirt, shoving it back with his ankle as if the very sight of it made him want to vomit. “You ruined it!”
“How? I. What?”
“How, you, blah blah blah!” Jonghyun takes a hold of the shirt once more only to chuck it at Jinki’s face, the pink momentarily blinding Jinki until he clutches the fabric out of his face and inspects it.
“What are you talking about, midget?” Jinki isn’t one for name calling but it was as if Jonghyun had this gigantic fishing pole that could fish out the worst in Jinki from the depths of his soul with ease.
“That shirt didn’t used to be pink!”
“I have better things to do than… this!” Jinki holds the shirt up, crumpling it into a ball with both hands and throwing it back at Jonghyun who catches it with both of his.
“You’re just a bored little rich kid, aren’t you?!”
Jinki scoffs, spinning back to his monitor. “You’re one to talk.”
“You better pay for this.”
“I would. If I was responsible for it. Which I’m not so.”
“Damnit, Jinki!” Jonghyun pulls at Jinki’s chair but the other boy’s hands automatically fly to the edge of his desk, clasping his hands at whatever he can to keep his chair from rolling to where Jonghyun wants it too.
“You’re gonna break my chair!”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
“Hyung?” Taemin’s meek voice floats into both their ears, stilling them in the gawky positions with Jinki folding over himself to reach for the edge of his desk with both hands, the chair he was sitting on tilting back towards the gravitational as well as Jonghyun forceful pull at the frame. Jonghyun suddenly loosens his grip on the frame of Jinki’s chair, the wheels landing on the ground with a thud as their eyes remain locked on the younger boy.
“Taemin.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“No.” Jonghyun and Jinki reply in unison, exchanging puzzled stares before looking back at Taemin with forced smiles.
A bucket of awkward silence is flung at them. Good thing Jonghyun isn’t one for letting the awkward linger. “Hi. I’m-“
“Kim Jonghyun yesIknowIloveyourmom’swork-you’reImeanheyIuhm. I’m Taemin.” Taemin sticks a hand out to fill Jonghyun’s vacant one, shaking it enthusiastically with bright eyes. “I’m a fan. If you haven’t noticed.”
Jinki rolls his eyes as the both of them retrieve their hands. “It’s nice to know that someone here is.”
“Ahahaha, right?” Taemin laughs mechanically and in that moment of clumsy smiles Jinki is more than certain that Jonghyun’s finding Taemin adorable enough to keep.
Taemin passes a look at Jinki beside Jonghyun’s shoulder, Jinki offering him one arched brown in return. “I’ve seen you around school, haven’t I?”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Taemin nods. “I’m one of Jinki’s friends.”
“Probably his only friend, right?”
“Yeah, I didn’t see that retort coming at all. Nice one, Jonghyun.” Jinki says to his monitor while Taemin shifts his weight on his legs, panic rising in his throat.
“Uhm”
“Don’t mind him. He’s just, well.”
“I’ve known him for two years.” Taemin offers with slow nods of his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
The rest of that day was spent with Taemin and Jinki in Jinki’s room while Jonghyun randomly bursts in just to remind Jinki of his ruined clothing and how not paying for it will cost him a leg and his left nut. Taemin giggles rather girlishly from his seat while Jinki huffs at his monitor, trying his hardest not to wish death upon the blonde monster.
~o~
The next day when Jonghyun finds out that there was a miscalculation in the laundry room involving Jonghyun’s shirt and Eunhye, the maid, Jonghyun struggles for the words he wants to hear out of Eunhye’s mouth.
“So, Jinki had nothing to do with this?”
“Jinki sshi? He’s never been here in the laundry room. Ever.”
Jonghyun was on the verge of paying her just to say that Jinki did this on purpose just so he would not have to face his mistakes but, really, he would just be placing himself in a rather compromising position and Eunhye might just stare at his hand of offered money, all the while texting Jinki’s mom of the bribery being made behind her back.
Truth was, Jonghyun didn’t exactly hate Jinki to the point of getting the guy in trouble but everything that has been transpiring between the two of them so far has been leaning more towards his not-really-hate emotions and it’s beginning to weigh on Jonghyun since they’ve been sharing a room. He starts to question why he thought that it was a good idea to begin with.
That afternoon as Jinki disappears to God knows where Jonghyun gathers his things from the closet and the bathroom, throwing them carelessly into his brown bag and moving to the nearest guest room on the same floor level. He finds the one that he saw a few weeks back when he was discovering the different rooms for himself, the one with the big windows and a four poster bed. He dumps the bag in the center of the bed, plopping down next to it on his stomach, pushing at the mattress to adjust himself on his back.
He stretches his arms up and behind his head, drawing patterns on the ceilings with his eyes. Everything around him is spacious and quiet and everything that it wasn’t when he was rooming with Jinki. And he decides, confusingly enough-even to himself-that he doesn’t like having the whole bed to his lonely self. It reminded him too much of home and why he wanted out of that house in the first place. It reminded him of nights when he would wake up to no one, disappointment clogging his brain for the rest of the day. It reminded him of things he wanted pushed away, memories he didn’t want in the pile.
So with that he takes his things and places them back in Jinki’s closet, his toothbrush back in the toothbrush holder in Jinki’s bathroom, realizing for the first time that Jinki never ruined his shirt. And now he kind of believes it to the point where he’d rather apologize than sleep in a bed that didn’t require him to keep still in his place.
~o~
Choi Minho wasn’t the most popular boy in campus to begin with, but his name got around for being a varsity player of the soccer team since he was in his freshman year, making him the youngest and the most consistent to ever be on the team. So it would only make sense that he and Jonghyun would get along like two peas in a pod.
The star varsity player and the renowned actress’ son-a match made in heaven, Jinki thinks as a result of one too many romantic comedies he’s shamefully watched and… in some cases enjoyed.
Jinki peers over his half crescent edged sandwich, fixated on the pair laughing along with another group of students in a table not that far from Jinki’s. Taemin’s torso comes into view and Jinki does this thing where his gaze trails up to meet Taemin’s and immediately goes back to his sandwich as if it tasted like gold and rainbows mixed together.
“I saw that.”
“You saw what?”
“You are so into him.”
“I am not into Jonghyun.” Jinki bites off a huge chunk of his sandwich, munching lividly-or the way he thinks is the livid way to munch on a sandwich when really he just seemed hungry.
“I didn’t even have to say his name.” Taemin drops his tray on the table, hauling one leg up to slip underneath, the other shortly after before settling his weight down and piercing his banana milk with a straw.
“You’re delusional.”
“And you’re gay for Jonghyun. Shit happens, huh hyung?”
“Taemin, how can I like someone whose feet stink worse than my cooking?”
“You can deny those feelings all you want, hyung. But the fact of the matter is you’re just as charmed by him as his minions over there. I’m incredibly insightful, or haven’t you noticed?” Taemin states all of this before searching for the straw of his banana milk with his tongue. Jinki isn’t quite sure whether he was talking to a four year old or someone who is just as wise as he claims to be.
“Just finish your milk and shut up.”
“If you don’t like him then answer this. Have you-at any point of sleeping in one bed with him-kicked him out like you did me?”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Don’t avoid the question.” Taemin taps a finger on the side of his milk.
Jinki shrugs, tugging the plastic of his sandwich further down.
“You haven’t, have you?”
“Your point?”
“Love has changed you. Cue slow motion shots of Jonghyun in a montage of your memories with him accompanied by soft, yet still acceptingly testosterone blended romantic music.”
In Jinki’s head all he sees are images of Jonghyun’s head as he concentrates on a message he’s texting as he frequently does whenever he’s alone or with company, Jonghyun tossing clothes from his closet when he’s in search of a shirt or a pair of pants that he just flung in the laundry basket two days ago, Jonghyun scrunching up his nose distastefully at the sight of Jinki’s books piled up by his side as he asks, “Can you make like that guy Powder from that one scene in that movie where the girl chooses a random page of a book and he recites everything word for word? I love that scene.” and all Jinki does is shut him out mentally but not without a quick shove. They weren’t lovey dovey memories or anything that would make anyone swoon and, honestly, music would just make it all look like a bunch of misplaced footage running around in Jinki’s head. But it keeps him occupied for the first few seconds, enough time to cause Taemin to laugh at his face victoriously as if confirmation was within his reach.
~o~
Jinki walks out of the faculty room with a wad of papers in his hand, photocopies of surveys that Jinki has to distribute to his entire batch. The survey was about the school trip which was to take place in a few weeks; questions regarding where the students wanted to go since their school promoted democracy of the students yet Jinki was caged within the duties of activities as such because he was the model student and oh so obedient.
Jinki meets Taemin by his locker, the other male gaping at the thick layer of papers in Jinki’s hands.
“Youre joking? All of these?”
“There are seventy nine students in our batch. The teachers made me photocopy ninety just to make sure that everyone gets a copy.”
“Until what time do we have?” Unlike Jinki, Taemin wasn’t condemned to the wishes of their spiteful teachers but they were friends so by association, he was.
“Until tomorrow.”
“WHAT?”
“We’ll be excused from a few classes don’t worry. So for the rest of the days all we have to do is… this.”
With Taemin running out of complaints they split the pile and wait until the bell rings. With all of the students in their classrooms everything would be organized.
Taemin and Jinki decide on which side of the walls of classrooms they are going to be working with and when Jinki doesn’t realize the third of the classrooms that he was to enter contained Jonghyun, he didn’t have much else to say or do. He didn’t even know why seeing Jonghyun was a problem for him when they saw each other every day. Literally.
Jinki carefully gives out the papers one by one, the teacher helping him out on the other side. Once all of the papers where with a respectful student Jinki positions himself near one of the windows, accidentally overhearing Jonghyun whispering at Minho, asking if he was going to come.
Jinki would be lying if he said he didn’t understand why his spirits deflated at the sight of Jonghyun smiling when Minho nods a yes. He strongly disliked it when the protagonist of a movie would be confused because of very normal feelings such as jealously and anger out of liking someone and he wasn’t going to spend sleep just to roam around in his head for the answers.
And it really rubbed him the wrong way when he suddenly realized that he liked Jonghyun enough to be jealous because even as he liked the other boy he was still immensely irritated at the sight of him.
~o~
Jinki and Jonghyun are awakened later that night to Jinki’s mom, knocking repeatedly on their door at midnight. Jonghyun, whose positioned allowed him an easier angle at the door, languidly rises from his bed to pull it open.
Jinki’s mother stood before him, the light catching her furious expression.
“On the bed, now. Jinki, get up!” She half shouts, flipping the lights open.
JInki is momentarily blinded, shielding his sensitive eyes away with the back of his hand as he stirs in the sheets, pushing them away to sit up, his hair a tangles, dark brown mess. Jonghyun, hair still unbelievably the way that it looked this morning when they were in school, takes a seat on the foot of the bed like Jinki’s mother asked, heart racing as she paced in front of them, waiting for Jinki to sit next to Jonghyun.
When both boys have settled on the foot of the bed Jinki’s mother reveals from behind her a two cigarette butts, blackened at one end. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Jonghyun. Did you smoke out in the patio when I was away?”
If Jonghyun was drugged with sleep before that question certainly jolted him to sobriety. “What?”
“Don’t lie to me. I know how you like to have your fun, but I will not tolerate smoking in this house, do you understand me?”
Jonghyun flicks his gaze towards Jinki who was blinking up at him quietly then back his mom, powerless. “Yes.” He answers only after a few breaths.
“This goes for you too, Jinki. If you ever let him talk you into doing something like this you’ll find yourself in a world of pain.”
Jinki’s mom leaves after that, stomping towards the door and shutting it close without bothering to turn the lights off. She was pissed beyond compare and Jinki knew this to be a fact so they both stay silent, Jinki stuttering even in his own head.
“Jonghyun.” Jinki fiddles with his shirt nervously. “Jonghyun, I-“
“Don’t worry about it.” Jonghyun goes on all fours, crawling towards the pillow, too tired to focus on anything seriously.
“What?”
“I said, don’t worry about it. Can you just get the lights?”
Jinki worries on his bottom lip, wringing his hands together as he walks toward the light switch and flips it up. In the dark, with only the street lights penetrating through Jinki’s window he stares at Jonghyun’s back wondering if he was mad of if he really didn’t care.
If only Jinki had disposed of the butts in a can of coke like he always did. The one time he forgets to be cautious…
~o~
“Hey, Jjong.” Jinki catches up to Jonghyun in the hallway, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as Jonghyun shuts his locker close. “About last night.”
“Dude.” Jonghyun practically laughs while Jinki stands there, puzzled. “I said you don’t have to worry about it. Your mom was right, anyway, I mean, if there was anyone in that house that was worthy of being called out for smoking it’s me, right?”
“Jonghyun,” Jinki takes Jonghyun’s shoulder in his hand, willing the other boy to just stop and hear him out, even for just a second. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I swear.”
Jonghyun’s gaze roams over Jinki’s face. He seemed as if he was in search for sincerity even if he didn’t have too, not with the way Jinki was touching him and practically pouting at him. Jonghyun gives in, offering a placating smile. “It’s okay. I don’t mind covering for you just this once. But you have to stop that habit. It’ll make your teeth rot and then, you know, you’re smile will come off all weird coz of all the black.”
Jinki’s hand suddenly flies to his lips, brows furrowing causing Jonghyun to laugh at his self consciousness. “I’ll see you later.”
~o~
Jonghyun isn’t surprised to find Jinki hunched over his stupid computer as he slams the stupid door and plops into the stupid sheets because everything about today was just a cornucopia of stupid. And then some. Jonghyun gathers pillows and parts of the blanket into his arms, muffling his shriek and reducing it to what seemed to Jinki like a painful moan of sorts, still distracting no matter how absorbed he was in his work.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Jinki tries without looking away from the monitor, without even preventing himself from typing out full sentences and even he’s impressed with how amazing he is at multitasking.
“Depends. Do you have a hole I can crawl into and die in?”
“Not right now, I don’t.” Jinki dots the hundredth sentence, stretching in his seat as he takes his well deserved first break of the day.
“What do you always type?”
“Homework?” Jinki spins around, not bothering to keep Jonghyun from messing his bed up any further because there was clearly no point to telling Kim Jonghyun to not get his things into the mix of his current frustrations.
“Are you just saying that but really you’re just surfing for porn? Come on, we’re both guys, you can tell me.” Jonghyun sits up, readjusting his fringe.
Jinki scoffs. “Only you can tell me I’m neglecting my homework for pornography when you’re clearly upset about something else that’s in a whole other spectrum.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Jonghyun falls back on the bed, hand over his stomach.
“Okay.” Jinki spins back to his monitor, mouth pushed to one side as he reads over what he just wrote.
“It’s just ridiculous, you know?”
“What is?”
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Who are you talking too?”
“Can’t you see that the air and I are having a conversation? Fuck off.”
Jinki releases a breath through his nose, not in the mood for such immaturity but he humors Jonghyun anyway because all he has to do is shut up and listen.
“I’m so sick of people thinking that I’m craving for attention. Like I asked to be born as my mom’s son. Like I chose this. And it’s not my fault I look this way. Damnit, it’s my fucking face, there’s nothing I can do about it. But no, people always think everything that they see on me has something to do with them. That I purposefully style my hair to the right and wear black pants just so they’d want to get in them and see just how tight they are. Whatever happened to romance?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eavesdrop much?”
“Oh my god!” Jinki takes whatever books he can fit into his arms, a yellow pad paper under his arm and a pen shoved in one of his pockets. He walks towards the door, marches almost, intending to finish his work in his mother’s office. “I’ll be back when you’re no longer a thirteen year old girl.”
When the door slams shut Jonghyun’s head sinks into the sheets, thinking that air wasn’t very good at conversation.
~o~
Ever since that day Jinki’s noticed differences in Jonghyun. He thinks there are a lot but really it’s just the way Jonghyun ignores certain texts that makes his phone beep unlike how he used to reply to each one without a second thought before.
What feeds Jinki’s curiosity even more is when Jonghyun doesn’t even hesitate to send his phone into the basket before dinner, sometimes even asking where it was. Jinki arches a brow dubious every time but Jonghyun ignores him, stuffing his face with rice and meat.
In school is where the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly because Jinki sees Jonghyun and Minho no longer walking together or even sitting together during lunch and this makes him wonder about what went on between the two of them even if it evidently isn’t any of his business. But much like any high school all Jinki had to do was be friends with the right people and the dirt was going to come to him. Luckily, his one and only trusted friend, Taemin, was an ace at talking to people, what with his innocent oh my god there is no way that this guy would spill any of my secrets face.
From Taemin what Jinki finds out is that Jonghyun and Minho got into a fight a few days back in a party at Kim Kibum’s house. The brawl wasn’t anything violent but Jonghyun was seen leaving a room and Minho was trudging after him, trying to apologize about something but Jonghyun wasn’t having it.
“So, you see what this means, hyung?”
“No, what?”
“Well, one, fuck, you’re a lot dumber than I expected and two, Jonghyun is obviously gay.”
“We can’t just jump to conclusions.”
“There’s no jumping when they’re doing the jumping for us. I mean, think about it. Jonghyun leaves the room, clearly upset about something that Minho did and Minho’s after him all, ‘hold on, bruh! Lemme explain.’”
“And Jonghyun’s gay because…?”
“Because they just had a lover’s squabble. Oh, wow. It’s like I’m teaching you how to walk sometimes, hyung.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Taemin folds his arms over his chest, tapping his foot, obviously annoyed with Jinki not agreeing with him.
“It’s just. Taemin. I don’t see anything factual enough to prove that. They could have been fighting about anything-or, no. Wait.”
Jinki thinks back to the time in his room, when Jonghyun walked in and began conversing with the air about love and how he hated being seen as his mother’s son all the time.
“What, hyung? What is it?”
Jinki catches his tongue, not allowing his bafflement or what could possibly be an epiphany overcome him. “No. It’s nothing. I should, uh, pee. Bye Taemin.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I love you too.” Jinki ruffles his hair, running to the next hall and passing by the classrooms calmly in search of Jonghyun’s blonde head through the small windows.
~o~
“Hey.” Jinki’s breathless by the time he catches up with Jonghyun on the track, managing to find him by asking around in the faculty room for his schedule.
Jonghyun, shocked, halts in the act of running, forgetting about the race and staring JInki up and down as the boy holds onto his knees and catches his breath. “Jinki? What are you doing here?”
“You should-ha, oh shit.” Jinki clutches at his heart as he struggles to position himself back up, squinting at the sun. “You should be careful. The rumor mill is spinning rather rapidly.”
“What are you talking about?” Jonghyun hauls him by the arm, leads him to the bleachers as they avoid the other runners speeding past. “Breathe, will ya?”
“I. am. I. Wow. How far is it. From the building. To here? Like. Six blocks?”
“The building’s over there. This is why you should stop smoking. You’re shriveling your lungs up making its capacity the same size as a pea. True facts.”
“You should be careful about what people are saying about you and Minho.”
“Me and Minho?’
“I heard from a reliable source-“
“You mean Taemin?”
“-no. well, that’s irrelevant, but, um, yes. Just. He said that there might be some sort of misconception being formed regarding your, er, friendship.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious, Jjong. Like, people find out. And when they do they’ll eat that shit up.”
“There’s nothing going on, though.”
“That won’t hold up in Naver dot com.”
Before Jonghyun can formulate a response his coach is calling him and waving at him to get his ass back on the field, as he so graciously formed his sentence. Jonghyun stands up, patting his hands on his golden shorts. “I’ll see you at home. Go to class, Jinki.”
“Yeah, I’ll-class, oh shit!”
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-- bengiieee, i hope you like it. :) mishu mucho~